The Case of the Missing Pants

I have lost one of Dave's pairs of suit pants. Since he only has two suits, this represents a 50% decline in his total Sunday wardrobe. I have no idea where these pants are. I'm too cheap to take them to the drycleaners, so I generally (try to) clean them using a Dryell dryer bag and a wet washcloth. Since I find this onerous, his suits will often hang over my rocking chair in our room for weeks on end, supposedly "just about" to be cleaned, and he will take the least dirty suit off the chair on Sunday morning to wear. Well, a couple of weeks ago there were 4 items of clothing hanging on that chair (2 coats, 2 pants), and then suddenly there were just 3. We have looked under, around, inside the rocking chair, we've looked under the bed, we've gone through both of our closets, we've done an archeological dig through the pack and play--nothing. Generally I blame lost items on Polly, but I really, truly cannot envision a scenario in which she'd take that pair of pants and be able to conceal them someplace that I wouldn't be able to find. Anyway, I launched one last search this morning, very miffed for having gotten myself in this situation to begin with. After looking fruitlessly, I went into the kitchen to find Dave washing the dishes. "Don't wash those dishes," I barked at him. In the perverse logic of my frustration, Dave washing the dishes was yet another proof of my incompetence as the manager of our home, and since that's my only job at the moment, I have a fair amount of emotional weight riding on my performance of it. Dave backed away, knowing an irrationally annoyed wife when he sees one. I stomp around the house, making beds and changing diapers, and finally stomp back to Dave and acknowledge to him what is obvious, that I'm grumpy about having lost his pants. He, since he cares not a whit about missing pants but he cares heaps about a grumpy wife, responds with an inoffensive kiss.

And that's the end of the story. I still haven't found the pants. But tomorrow I'm taking the remaining suit and the orphaned jacket to the drycleaner. And at some point, perhaps when we disassemble everything in the house and load it into a moving truck, I'll find out what happened to those pants. And hopefully by then I'll be past the point of wanting to assign blame.